أَفَأَنتَ تُسْمِعُ ٱلصُّمَّ أَوْ تَهْدِى ٱلْعُمْىَ وَمَن كَانَ فِى ضَلَٰلٍۢ مُّبِينٍۢ
Can you, then, make the deaf hear or guide the blind and those who are in manifest error?
فَإِمَّا نَذْهَبَنَّ بِكَ فَإِنَّا مِنْهُم مُّنتَقِمُونَ
We will indeed take vengeance on them, whether We take you away
أَوْ نُرِيَنَّكَ ٱلَّذِى وَعَدْنَٰهُمْ فَإِنَّا عَلَيْهِم مُّقْتَدِرُونَ
or show you what We have promised them, for indeed We hold them in Our power.
فَٱسْتَمْسِكْ بِٱلَّذِىٓ أُوحِىَ إِلَيْكَ ۖ إِنَّكَ عَلَىٰ صِرَٰطٍۢ مُّسْتَقِيمٍۢ
So hold fast to what has been revealed to you. Indeed, you are on a straight path.
وَإِنَّهُۥ لَذِكْرٌۭ لَّكَ وَلِقَوْمِكَ ۖ وَسَوْفَ تُسْـَٔلُونَ
Indeed it is a reminder for you and your people, and soon you will be questioned.
وَسْـَٔلْ مَنْ أَرْسَلْنَا مِن قَبْلِكَ مِن رُّسُلِنَآ أَجَعَلْنَا مِن دُونِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ءَالِهَةًۭ يُعْبَدُونَ
Ask those of Our apostles We have sent before you: Did We set up any gods to be worshipped besides the All-beneficent?
وَلَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا مُوسَىٰ بِـَٔايَٰتِنَآ إِلَىٰ فِرْعَوْنَ وَمَلَإِي۟هِۦ فَقَالَ إِنِّى رَسُولُ رَبِّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
Certainly We sent Moses with Our signs to Pharaoh and his elite. He said, ‘I am indeed an apostle of the Lord of all the worlds.’
فَلَمَّا جَآءَهُم بِـَٔايَٰتِنَآ إِذَا هُم مِّنْهَا يَضْحَكُونَ
But when he brought them Our signs, they indeed laughed at them.
وَمَا نُرِيهِم مِّنْ ءَايَةٍ إِلَّا هِىَ أَكْبَرُ مِنْ أُخْتِهَا ۖ وَأَخَذْنَٰهُم بِٱلْعَذَابِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْجِعُونَ
We did not show them a sign but it was greater than the other, and We visited on them punishment so that they might come back.
وَقَالُوا۟ يَٰٓأَيُّهَ ٱلسَّاحِرُ ٱدْعُ لَنَا رَبَّكَ بِمَا عَهِدَ عِندَكَ إِنَّنَا لَمُهْتَدُونَ
They would say, ‘O magician! Invoke your Lord for us by the covenant He has made with you [to remove this scourge]. We will indeed be guided [when it is removed].’
فَلَمَّا كَشَفْنَا عَنْهُمُ ٱلْعَذَابَ إِذَا هُمْ يَنكُثُونَ
But when We lifted the punishment from them, behold, they would break their pledge.
وَنَادَىٰ فِرْعَوْنُ فِى قَوْمِهِۦ قَالَ يَٰقَوْمِ أَلَيْسَ لِى مُلْكُ مِصْرَ وَهَٰذِهِ ٱلْأَنْهَٰرُ تَجْرِى مِن تَحْتِىٓ ۖ أَفَلَا تُبْصِرُونَ
And Pharaoh proclaimed to his people, saying, ‘O my people! Do not the kingdom of Egypt and these rivers that run at my feet belong to me? Do you not perceive?
أَمْ أَنَا۠ خَيْرٌۭ مِّنْ هَٰذَا ٱلَّذِى هُوَ مَهِينٌۭ وَلَا يَكَادُ يُبِينُ
Am I not better than this wretch who cannot even speak clearly?
فَلَوْلَآ أُلْقِىَ عَلَيْهِ أَسْوِرَةٌۭ مِّن ذَهَبٍ أَوْ جَآءَ مَعَهُ ٱلْمَلَٰٓئِكَةُ مُقْتَرِنِينَ
Why no bracelets of gold have been thrown to him, nor any angels accompany him as escorts?’
فَٱسْتَخَفَّ قَوْمَهُۥ فَأَطَاعُوهُ ۚ إِنَّهُمْ كَانُوا۟ قَوْمًۭا فَٰسِقِينَ
Thus did he mislead his people and they obeyed him. Indeed, they were a transgressing lot.
فَلَمَّآ ءَاسَفُونَا ٱنتَقَمْنَا مِنْهُمْ فَأَغْرَقْنَٰهُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ
So when they roused Our wrath, We took vengeance on them and drowned them all.
فَجَعَلْنَٰهُمْ سَلَفًۭا وَمَثَلًۭا لِّلْءَاخِرِينَ
Thus We made them the vanguard and an example for posterity.
۞ وَلَمَّا ضُرِبَ ٱبْنُ مَرْيَمَ مَثَلًا إِذَا قَوْمُكَ مِنْهُ يَصِدُّونَ
When the Son of Mary was cited as an example, behold, your people raise an outcry.
وَقَالُوٓا۟ ءَأَٰلِهَتُنَا خَيْرٌ أَمْ هُوَ ۚ مَا ضَرَبُوهُ لَكَ إِلَّا جَدَلًۢا ۚ بَلْ هُمْ قَوْمٌ خَصِمُونَ
They say, ‘Are our gods better or he?’ They cite him to you only for the sake of contention. Indeed, they are a contentious lot.
إِنْ هُوَ إِلَّا عَبْدٌ أَنْعَمْنَا عَلَيْهِ وَجَعَلْنَٰهُ مَثَلًۭا لِّبَنِىٓ إِسْرَٰٓءِيلَ
He was just a servant whom We had blessed and made an exemplar for the Children of Israel.
وَلَوْ نَشَآءُ لَجَعَلْنَا مِنكُم مَّلَٰٓئِكَةًۭ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ يَخْلُفُونَ
Had We wished We would have set angels in your stead to be [your] successors on the earth.
وَإِنَّهُۥ لَعِلْمٌۭ لِّلسَّاعَةِ فَلَا تَمْتَرُنَّ بِهَا وَٱتَّبِعُونِ ۚ هَٰذَا صِرَٰطٌۭ مُّسْتَقِيمٌۭ
[Say,] ‘Indeed he is a portent of the Hour; so do not doubt it and follow me. This is a straight path.
وَلَا يَصُدَّنَّكُمُ ٱلشَّيْطَٰنُ ۖ إِنَّهُۥ لَكُمْ عَدُوٌّۭ مُّبِينٌۭ
Do not let Satan bar you [from the way of Allah]. Indeed he is your manifest enemy.’
وَلَمَّا جَآءَ عِيسَىٰ بِٱلْبَيِّنَٰتِ قَالَ قَدْ جِئْتُكُم بِٱلْحِكْمَةِ وَلِأُبَيِّنَ لَكُم بَعْضَ ٱلَّذِى تَخْتَلِفُونَ فِيهِ ۖ فَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُونِ
When Jesus brought those manifest proofs, he said, ‘I have certainly brought you wisdom, and [I have come] to make clear to you some of the things that you differ about. So be wary of Allah and obey me.
إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ هُوَ رَبِّى وَرَبُّكُمْ فَٱعْبُدُوهُ ۚ هَٰذَا صِرَٰطٌۭ مُّسْتَقِيمٌۭ
Indeed Allah is my Lord and your Lord; so worship Him. This is a straight path.’
فَٱخْتَلَفَ ٱلْأَحْزَابُ مِنۢ بَيْنِهِمْ ۖ فَوَيْلٌۭ لِّلَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا۟ مِنْ عَذَابِ يَوْمٍ أَلِيمٍ
But the factions differed among themselves. So woe to the wrongdoers for the punishment of a painful day.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
What the passage says. God promises the Prophet vengeance on his deniers whether he is taken away or lives to see it, and bids him “hold fast to what has been revealed” — “a reminder for you and your people,” about which they will be questioned (vv. 41–44) — and to ask the earlier messengers whether any god was set up besides the All-Merciful (v. 45). Then Moses is sent to Pharaoh with signs they meet with laughter; Pharaoh boasts of Egypt’s kingdom and rivers, scorns Moses as “contemptible” with no golden bracelets or escorting angels, makes light of his people’s minds until, angering God, they are drowned as “a lesson for posterity” (vv. 46–56). Finally, when the Son of Mary is cited, Quraysh clamor — “Are our gods better, or he?” — and God answers that Jesus “was only a servant whom We favored,” a sign of the Hour and a straight path to be followed, over whom the factions later split (vv. 57–65).
How the present sources read it. Al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī handle the plain sense and the variants (aswira/asāwira, salafan/sulufan, yaṣiddūn/yaṣuddūn), canvass the identity of the “great man,” and read Pharaoh’s taunt of Moses’ “knot of tongue” against Ṭā-Hā. Both already carry the ʿAlid reading of v. 41 as a view of the House alongside the Badr reading, and al-Ṭabarsī gives the Farewell-Pilgrimage narration (“or ʿAlī, or ʿAlī”). On v. 57 both preserve the tradition, related from ʿAlī, of his likeness to Jesus — “loved to excess… hated to excess… the middle course saved.” Al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī (al-Mīzān) argues, on the sūra’s Meccan character, that “the Son of Mary was cited as an example” points to Sūrat Maryam, and explicitly rejects the popular Ibn al-Zibaʿrā occasion-of-revelation as a report “of no account” (citing Ibn Ḥajar that it “has no basis”); he reads v. 59 as a refutation of Jesus’ deification and v. 61’s pronoun as Jesus, a means of knowing the Hour. Al-Mīzān also preserves the pivotal anti-anthropomorphic tradition on v. 55: God “does not feel sorrow as we do,” but the pleasure and wrath of His awliyāʾ are made His own — a reading al-Baḥrānī carries identically from al-Kāfī.
The two Imāmī narrative sources read the passage densely through walāya, and these taʾwīls are rendered exactly as attributed. Al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī (al-Burhān) both make v. 41’s vengeance fall “by ʿAlī,” v. 43’s “straight path” the walāya of ʿAlī (“ʿAlī is the straight path”), and carry the long Ascension narration behind v. 45 (Abū Jaʿfar’s debate with Nāfiʿ, the gathering of the prophets, the adhān containing “ḥayya ʿalā khayr al-ʿamal”). Both attach to v. 57 the al-Kāfī/Salmān report that Jesus was cited as ʿAlī’s likeness; al-Burhān adds the al-Kamad narration on v. 48 (the mountain of al-Ḥusayn’s killers) and the reading of v. 61’s “sign of the Hour” as ʿAlī (with a corroborating chain “from the opponents”). Two of al-Qummī’s glosses touch textual integrity and are flagged: on v. 57 he states the recitation was “yaḍijjūn” “altered to yaṣiddūn,” and on v. 58 that “his name was erased from this place” — reported here strictly as al-Qummī words them, not endorsed. Al-Qummī and al-Burhān likewise read v. 62’s “let not Satan bar you” as “so-and-so [barring you] from Amīr al-Muʾminīn.”
The published English. An Enlightening Commentary reads the Moses–Pharaoh scene as tyranny mistaking wealth and river-fed power for proof, and Jesus (vv. 57–65) as a servant and sign — not a deity — over whom sects divided; it treats the vengeance of vv. 41–42 as the certain divine reckoning. All six sources are present; none was silent.